admit to your stupidity

[Porschekid962]

my dad and i were convinced that we could build our car how we wanted it for the budget we setup the week before we bought the car. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha

[GSpreeman]

You know all those warnings that you should cut out the old gasket around the windshield before trying to remove the windshield. Well, I popped the back window out of my 356 without cutting the gasket and said, well, I just saved $40-50. Let me try it with the front windshield. I get the windshield about 1/3 the way out when I hear a nasty "pop" only to watch a crack go all the way from the top to the bottom of the windshield right in the middle. Okay, I still need to buy a new windshield but at least I saved that 40 yr. old gasket!!!!

[911]

When I first got my '86 Carrera in '98 I checked the oil when it was cold. I panicked when I saw that there wasn't any oil on the dip stick. So, I added two quarts of oil.

When I drove the car I must have killed five million mosqitoes! I had the biggest smoking trail coming out of the back of my car. After this experience I realized that I need to check the oil when the engine is warm.

Rich

[Jens]

Nice photo record Derek.

I've made all the classic blunders from draing the oil Niagra Falls style all over the floor, to starting the car with a towel in the proximity of the fan belt. That one stopped the engine in a nano-second. 45 minutes later I had the towel freed from the *lower* pulley using a mat knife, pliers and then an Exacto knife and forceps. It's amazing to me that a fabric can be made that dense. It was very nearly a solid object!

[scottb]

I love this thread. It is the epitomy of "we're all only human."

[Jens]

In hind sight, one my biggest blunders has to be the time I was shopping for a motor for my 21 Window Deluxe VW Microbus. I had traded my Beetle for this perfect bus. Both with no motors. I had heard that a guy at the Bug Shop in South Acton (Mass.) had one for sale. Well, the guy had built a high performance VW motor and put it in his '56 Speedster and he wanted to sell the car and keep the motor. Damn. I didn't need two cars without motors so I passed. The car was complete and in primer, ready for paint. I kept shopping. He was asking all of $300! Yup, three hundred DOH!!!!!!! WTF was I thinking?!

[5axis]

Time to add my recent adventure.
Let us call it how to stop a 930 with a old Tshirt.


I had everthing wide open and had placed it and several others over the openings. No foreign objects were going to get into my intake....

[scedmonds]

I don't do much on mine (I leave it to the pro's, and they love to see me bring the car to them). Early on after I got the car, I replaced a single worn out decklid shock with a "double" unit that puts two of the little suckers together. Boy, did it work well!

It was so effective that, in a very short time, I and the mechanics working on it dented the deck itself -- because we had to slam the d@mn thing shut to get it to close.

I put the single shock back on -- and had a paintless dent removal guy deal with the stupid results .

Cheers!

C.

[dillinger]

One of mine happened today. When I bought my '83 SC my headlight washers were faded and cracked. The left one had a piece of the trim broken off. the right one was missing the little tab that goes in the hole (to keep it from rotating). I don't know if any of you have attempted this replacement, but it's kinda a pain in the a$$.

So after over an hour, I had the left one replaced, within 45 more minutes I was hooking up the right one. But, the tube wouldn't go into the new sprayer, so I pulled on the rubber tubing. I got it in and as I did a piece of black plastic came flying by me. No problem, I thought it was a braket. I have it all screwed in and I start admiring my work and look at the left one only to see that a piece of the trim piece was missing, hum remember the flying plastic. Okay, now it looks just like it did before I replaced it except it isn't faded. Crap, so I start moving it back to center and the tab on the right side breaks off. Wow, now the right one looks just like it did before, but it isn't faded.

Now, I know how they got that way in the first place. I guess I have to order 2 more spray nozzles and do it right this time.

Don

[jbirkett]

Oil change!! Opened the drain plug on the oil tank to drain into one of those black oil collection containers that will hold 20 quarts, forgot to open the vent plug and air pushed out the inlet. Funny how the oval indentation won't hold more than about a quart, you all know the tank holds about 9 quarts, garage floor holds an unlimited amount though.
John

[10zz964]

I have 964 tip.
After a heavy night out with friends, the next morning i get into my car and start it, nothing happen. I try several time but still nothing, I change the DME nothing. Battery was change not long ago. I got panic and call my mechanic, he came over. He went and look inside the car and start it the first time! I ask what's did u do?

he says " you left the gear in D"

He didn't charge me but i feel really stupid.
I will definitely get a manual next time.

[dickster]

oil changes are popular.

ok, i have two i can think of:

1. drained the oil from my car. then refilled without replacing the drain plug. £20 worth of fresh oil onto the driveway.

and the best one (i was young)

2. driving two friends back from a nightclub in the early hours. car comes to a halt on the motorway, i pull over onto hard shoulder.

i open the hood and i check for fuel by removing the fuel line to carb. dooh, no fuel coming out - must be out of fuel. yes, fuel gauge confirms this!!!!!!!!!

go to petrol station (bloody miles on foot), buy fuel can, buy fuel, return to car some hour and a half later.

then i pour in the new fuel. shut hood, get in car and turn key..........nothing. i keep turning........

then whoof......there are flames licking around the edges of the hood.

then the light bulb comes on in my head, f*ck, i forgot to replace the damn fuel line.

call tow truck - car written off.

[Paul L]

My first car was a 73 Mercury Capri (German Ford atleast). I did my first brake job, hand tightened the wheels back on while still on the jack. Lowered the car to test my first front brake job. 2 miles out the right front wheel flys off. I land on the front rotor, steer the car to the side of the road, jack the car back up put the wheel on, this time tighten the lug nuts while the car was on the ground. No damage to the car or myself except some black smears in the paint where the tire bounced down the side of the car.

[zymurgist]

This one isn't me, I swear. I'm posting this for a friend. Really.

I have this wanna-be mechanic friend (female, if that makes a difference ) who decided to check the engine oil in the 914 she had recently purchased, and she put the oil cap on top of the air filter (both of which are black). She got called away, and when she returned to her car, she neglected to replace the cap. She drove off in the car and thought nothing of it. Later, when she discovered that the cap had gone missing, she searched fruitlessly for that oil cap in the engine bay. Needing to cover the hole left by the missing cap, she substituted a rubber gasket in place of the oil cap and went on with life. The following day, while on her way to meet an old friend for lunch, the car started making hideous noises and ground to a halt. It turned out that the missing oil cap had lodged in the fan of the aircooled engine, shearing off the clutch on one end and the fan housing on the other. The fuel injected 2.0 engine was now an expensive pile of scrap metal. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, etc. She ended up buying another engine core, since the case in the 914 engine had a crack that had been sealed with JB Weld, and a mutual friend rebuilt the engine for her.

I think that a PPI would have uncovered the crack in the engine case, as well as the fact that the pristine looking body looked more like Swiss cheese underneath, but that's another story. And I learned from that experience and had a body man check out the 911 I ended up buying (from the same mutual friend).

[zymurgist]

Paul L,

I had a not-too-dissimilar experience. Many years ago, I owned a 1973 Toyota Celica, the kind with the body that looked like a baby Camaro. It had these trick aftermarket alloy wheels on it, as well as fog lights up front. This car was really stylin' for an 18 year old driver. These cool slotted wheels were held on by your standard acorn type lug nuts suitable for use with steel wheels, which were, in reality, totally wrong for the application. I found that out the hard way when I was driving along the road and one of the rear wheels came off. The car came to an abrupt halt, skidding along the metal shield that covered the brake drum. I thought that was a peculiar failure mode, put the wheel back on, and went about my business. This is where the stupidity comes in. Rather than perform even the most rudimentary causal analysis, I continued to drive around with the wrong lug nuts more-or-less holding the wheel on, until it happened again. This time, the emancipated wheel rolled out into the street and into the side of an old lady's car. She wasn't too happy about that, even though there was no damage to her car other than a black mark where the tire had struck it. ("You can buff that out, ma'am!") The cops came and we both told our stories... of course, I conveniently left out the part that it had happened before. He wrote me a warning and I went promptly to an auto parts store and found some lug nuts that would fit inside the holes and provide lots of thread to hold the wheels on. The wheels never came off again, at least not of their own accord.

[ErVikingo]

Another not Porsche....

A friends mother drove us home in her old Charger. She was doing burn outs and stuff for our benefit (10 years old!). We get home, the car is VERY hot, she doesn't want to get into deep doo doo with my buddies dad so,

she opened the hood, took the garden hose and (yes) she hosed off the engine......... can anyone say cracks............

Yep, I brought her the hose in the first place! It sounded like a good idea at the time.

[svandamme]

setting mfi pump timing incorrect
and flooding the engine so well, that something internally bends or breaks... ( busy tearing down engine to find out exactly what the damage will be on my bankaccount ) no wonder my starter motor blew...

[Craig 930 RS]

WAAAY back in high school - girl tells us that her windshield had ice on it.
Poured hot water on it to thaw it........well, you know the ROT story.....

[NY65912]

Years ago (like '83) I had a neighbor who had just bought a big Benz, the guy thoght he was hot S$$T. We were living in attached houses that had very narrow driveways which were on a pretty steep slope down to the garage door. It snowed and iced up real good.

So Mr. Hotshot gets in his new Benz and is going to back up the sloped driveway without shoveling or salting / sanding the ice. Well, he somehow manages to get the car wedged sideways up against his house and the common wall between his next door nieghbor. The nose and tail were up against the brick.

He gets a tow truck and the operator puts a long sling around the middle of the car and winches it out. A true piece of work, a thing of beauty! The dude double parks the car, walks away and a snow plow going pretty fast has a t bone accident at the intersection about 100 ft away, loses control and pushes the Benz into the largest oak tree in Brooklyn.
Needless to say the car was crushed. You all should have seen the look on the guy's face. Three hours of struggle with the driveway only to get creamed within 3 minutes of getting it out.

Oh yea, he gave the driver of the tow rig a $50 tip.... the rig just pulled away from the Benz when it got smashed.

[Quicksilver]

I’m 17 and I are a self edgimacated auto mickey-nick.
I'm working on the finishing touches of the new engine in my car and when I try to start it, it burbles and never quite catches.

I realize that the engine is flooded. I fail to think about why it would flood. (Turns out that you need to put the distributor in the car correctly to burn the fuel that goes in.) The short term problem is that the engine is obviously flooded. So how do you dry out the intake?

I know!!! It's gasoline! Lets burn it out! (Surprisingly this in itself works well and doesn't cause a problem!)

A brief application of the propane torch and the carburetor is burning nicely. After a minute I try to start the engine and it seems like it nearly was going to start. Re-light the carburetor so I can give it another try. After doing this a few times I realize it isn't drying out the intake fast enough for me. There isn't any fresh air getting down into the intake to burn off the gas down there! I can fix that!

I hold the throttle of the 4-barrel wide open and blow down into one of the venturis and sure enough it mixes really well with the gas and burns it off...

... as the blow torch like flame proves when it blows up out of the opposite venturi and removes part of one eyebrow and just a little bit of the hair on the side of my head.

It is funny but it was at this point that I asked a couple people for some guidance.


Wayne